"Yeah, which seemed like a pretty weird idea at the time. But he has become such an asset. We collaborate a lot. The robot part is that he moves his elbow and content comes out. While he’s chatting, he’s also tweeting and blogging -- and, you know, I’ll think that’s cute, and then the next day he’ll be on the front page with a synthetic piece about the analytics of television or new media, which he also covers. If Brian wasn’t such a decent guy, I would actually slip something into his food or quietly suffocate him with a pillow."

Carr also talks about the terrifying reality of making a mistake and having to tell the paper's editors what happened.

"I was on a streak a while back where, for three stories in a row, I picked up what are called “nonmaterial corrections” in that they didn’t affect the reader’s understanding of the story," he says. "But I still had to go down to the business section and was asked to explain myself and why I seemed to be having trouble getting things right -- and about what we could do to make sure that, going forward, I did get things right. Believe me, that got my attention."